Government is treating gun violence as a health crisis and there will be changes in the penal system before the end of year, Acting Attorney General Gregory Nicholls told the Senate on Wednesday.
He was speaking as Minister of Legal Affairs and Criminal Justice Michael Lashley piloted the Supreme Court of Judicature (Amendment) Bill, 2026, that would increase the number of judges and, among other things, establish a firearms division of the High Court.
Barbados was bearing a heavy price for being a hemispheric neighbour of the United States which manufactured guns and gave its citizens access to them, Nicholls said, adding that crime and violence had changed in character and reach with communities now carrying the burden.
“It’s important for me to give the country assurance that while all attention is being made to deal with this as a serious criminal justice issue, there are wider implications for how Barbados is dealing with the problem. So we are shifting this discussion and not treating it solely as a criminal or a law enforcement problem, but treating it as a public health challenge,” said Nicholls. The matter was wider than prosecution of gun crimes, sentencing of offenders, or rehabilitation and had to be viewed as a preventable problem that affected the lives of individuals, families, and communities, Nicholls pointed out.
“It requires, therefore, that the Government focus on identifying the root cause of violence. What is the reason why so many young people in the country are turning to gun crimes? It means we have to look and examine the full profile of those persons committing these gun crimes because justice will require the prosecution of people before the courts but effective justice will require that we ascertain the reason, the root cause, of why these individuals are placed in the system,” the Minister said.
He was fearful that if the public health approach was not adopted then the tactics of the early 1990s of stiffer penalties and not addressing the broad criminogenic and sociological issues that impacted gun crime would return.
“Poverty, inequality, exposure to trauma, early childhood traumatic experiences, lack of opportunities, all of the data points that if we are to attack the root of this problem [if we] reduce the risk factors and strengthen the protective factors, we will break this cycle and deal with it as a public health challenge. We have to emphasise prevention through community programmes,” Nicholls told the Senate.
He said while it was easy to politicise the methods and methodologies, the criminogenic studies pointed to what sociologists term as the paradigm between what is a social problem and a sociological problem.
“We also have to treat gun violence like a disease that can be studied, that can be prevented, managed. Governments and communities have to work collaboratively to reduce harm and improve overall public well-being. That is what we mean when we say we are adopting a public health approach to this problem, so that this legislation alone is not the only measure that the government is implementing,” he said. ( AC)
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